1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for selecting and displaying a language according to a use environment of a user in an electronic device including an operating unit capable of selectively displaying a plurality of different languages.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, with sales areas being diversified, an operating unit of an electronic device, such as a copier, facsimile, or printer, not only supports a plurality of languages as a display language, but also, for example, includes a plurality of pieces of different language data in one device and can switch among these pieces of language data at a later time in order to provide a display language according to a use environment of a user. In this manner, such an operating unit is configured to support various use environments.
In such a device, to share the control load among a plurality of Central Processing Units (CPUs), the operating unit includes a dedicated CPU independently of the main unit, and various pieces data are read from the memory provided for each CPU for start control. However, if all memories for CPUs are nonvolatile memories that can retain data even after power shutdown, the cost is high. To get around this problem, a nonvolatile memory is provided for a CPU of the control unit of the main unit, and at the time of activation at power-on, various pieces of data retained in that nonvolatile memory are transferred to the operating unit (refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-202105).
In one possible configuration of such a device, different pieces of display language data that can be switched according to the use environment of the user are provided in the operating unit, and a specification for the operating unit to select a language to be displayed is supplied from the main unit at the time of activating.
In this configuration, however, if an abnormality occurs to the main unit, the operating unit cannot receive any specifying information, thereby falling into a state in which it cannot be determined which language to be used for display. For example, if an abnormality occurs to the main unit while the user is installing a use language later on, the user may not be able to recognize an error message displayed on the operating unit.